Usability Evaluation of Mobile Weather Hazard Alert Applications

Cell phones enable us to receive and respond to critical incidents, such as: severe storms, tornadoes, and flash floods. However, due to the small display size of cell phones, and regardless of simplified symbols or alert messages, it is possible to overlook users’ ability to interact with the available features and understand the messages in a timely manner. Untrained and trained users of the Weather Radio application participated in an experiment to perform three search tasks; (task 1: location search, task 2: alert settings, and task 3: map settings). In task 4, they evaluated two types of weather alert messages: original National Weather Service (NWS) messages vs. filtered (proposed) messages. By recording users’ completion time on the search tasks, the results showed that the time of the typing in text bar method for task 1 was significantly less than the pin on map method, while much more time was required to complete tasks 2 and 3 by the untrained users compared to the trained users. It was also revealed that the proposed messages were more effective than the original messages by both user groups. This research of user-centered designs provides a foundation to support the designs of time-critical mobile alert systems

Towards an Enhanced User Experience with Smart Phone Weather Alert Applications: Usability and User-Centered Design Approaches

Today, smart phones are ubiquitous in our everyday lives. We rely heavily on their immediately available features, especially when time-critical and/or life-saving information, such as weather alert messages, need to be easily and quickly accessed. With the advancement of smart phone technology, smart phone weather alert applications (apps) have been continuously developed and launched to the market. However, many app developers may pay more attention to creating various features and highly sophisticated tools than considering the most important factors of the design- the usability and users’ needs. Overlooking usability principles and end-users’ needs in the design phase of any system interface can be associated with effectiveness, efficiency, and user satisfaction issues. More importantly, poor usability of time-critical interfaces (e.g. smart phone weather app interfaces) may even hinder performing life-saving actions. So far, only little attention has been devoted to the usability evaluation and end-user needs with weather alert apps on the smart phone platform. To address this issue, the work in this dissertation is centered on performing systematic usability and user-centered design (UCD) analysis approaches to evaluate and enhance the usability of smart phone weather apps, with a specific focus on first-time users. Specifically, (1) using both traditional (i.e. task completion rate, task completion time and performance surveys) and eye tracking (i.e. eye fixation durations, eye fixation numbers, and scanpath observations) measures, we evaluate the usability of smart phone weather apps with the goal of identifying usability problems; (2) using focus group interviews, we investigate end-users’ goals and needs in weather apps (first UCD phase); (3) considering the focus group findings, general usability heuristics, specific user groups’ (i.e. older users) limitations and recommendations, and smart phone app design principles, we develop a prototype smart phone weather app (second UCD phase); and finally (4) using both quantitative and qualitative evaluation approaches, we evaluate the developed prototype app to validate its usability (last UCD phase). Findings revealed multiple usability problems with currently running smart phone weather apps and showed that the developed prototype app that followed the UCD approach, greatly enhanced users’ experiences of different age groups compared to a representative popular weather app. We make several recommendations for future designs of smart phone weather apps, as well as apps that share similar features and characteristics

Cross-Cultural Study on OSH Risk Perception of Solar PV Workers of Saudi Arabia and India: Risk Mitigation through PtD

A large number of workers are entering the rapidly growing solar photovoltaic industry. The emerging occupational safety and health risks faced by the workers have rarely been measured and aptly addressed. Moreover, there is a lack of cross-cultural studies on solar photovoltaic workers engaged across different countries. This study was planned to measure the occupational safety and health risks, socio-demographic parameters, study the cross-cultural aspects and develop design concepts for risk mitigation. Field studies were conducted in solar installations in Saudi Arabia and India. Socio-demographic data and risk perception scores for eighteen different occupational safety and health risks were obtained from the workers (n = 135). In addition, discomfort glare was also measured. Design concepts were developed following the hierarchy of controls matrix and the bow-tie analysis method using the prevention through design approach. Heat stress, electrocution, solar radiation, and fire/electric flash were found in the high and very high risk categories. This is a first-of-its-kind cross-cultural study in the solar photovoltaic industry which measures the occupational safety and health risks and develops design concepts for mitigation of risks. This study will be beneficial to solar project developers, safety professionals, ergonomists, industrial designers and policy makers

Measuring the Causes of Saudi Arabian Construction Accidents: Management and Concerns

Introduction: Research indicate that construction site accidents are a global concern, and rates are rapidly increasing. In developing countries such as Saudi Arabia, safety issues are frequently ignored, and little is known about their causes. Objectives: This study aimed to shed light on factors causing accidents in Saudi Arabian construction companies. Methods: An online detailed survey, using Google Form, of accident features was distributed randomly to potential employees in 35 construction companies in Saudi Arabia, where one of the top administrators or safety officers were required to respond to the survey. It was conducted from 1st June to 31st August, 2013. The safety practices and perceptions of accident causes were assessed. Results: The response rate was 63%. Over half of the surveyed organizations encountered all of the selected accident types. While 19 (86%) of the construction companies maintained the equipment regularly, 15 (68%) had regular maintenance staff and 13 (59%) inspected the equipment before use. Although 18 (82%) of the workers were supplied with personal protective equipment (PPE), only 12 (55%) emphasized its use and offered site orientation for new employees.  In the last part of the survey, respondents were requested to rate 25 factors affecting safety performance at the construction sites on a scale of 1 to 5, with 5 being the most important. The three most important factors of poor safety performance were the firm's top leaders, a lack of training, and the reckless operation of equipment. Conclusion: Changing attitudes of surrounding safety culture have the potential to significantly improve safety outcomes in the Saudi Arabian construction industry. Two Saudi Arabian corporations, Saudi Aramco and Saudi Chevron Petrochemical provide a positive model for increasing construction safety in the country, but there is a paucity of industry-level data. Further scholarly attention is strongly indicated

Preventing fear return in humans: Music-based intervention during reactivation-extinction paradigm.

In several research studies, the reactivation extinction paradigm did not effectively prevent the return of fear if administered without any intervention technique. Therefore, in this study, the authors hypothesized that playing music (high valence, low arousal) during the reconsolidation window may be a viable intervention technique for eliminating fear-related responses. A three-day auditory differential fear conditioning paradigm was used to establish fear conditioning. Participants were randomly assigned into three groups, i.e., one control group, standard extinction (SE), and two experimental groups, reactivation extinction Group (RE) and music reactivation extinction (MRE), of twenty participants in each group. Day 1 included the habituation and fear acquisition phases; on Day 2 (after 24 hours), the intervention was conducted, and re-extinction took place on Day 3. Skin conductance responses were used as the primary outcome measure. Results indicated that the MRE group was more effective in reducing fear response than the RE and SE groups in the re-extinction phase. Furthermore, there was no significant difference observed between SE and RE groups. This is the first study known to demonstrate the effectiveness of music intervention in preventing the return of fear in a healthy individual. Therefore, it might also be employed as an intervention strategy (non-pharmacological approach) for military veterans, in emotion regulation, those diagnosed with post-traumatic stress disorder, and those suffering from specific phobias

Design of Supply Chain Network to Reduce Impacts of Damages during Shipping

Recently, the expand of industrial market has led to have long supply chain network. During the long shipment, the probability of having damaged products is likely to occur. The probability of having damaged products is different between stages and that could lead to higher percentage of damaged products when arrived at retailers. Many companies have rejected the entire shipment because the damaged product percentage was higher than that agreed on. Decision-makers have tried to reduce the percentage of damaged products that happened because the transit, loading unloading the shipment, and natural disasters. Companies started to implement recovery centers in the supply chain network in order to return their system steady statues. Recovery models have been developed in this paper to reduce the damaged percentage at minimum costs to do so. Results show that the possibility of implementing an inspection unit and a recovery centers in the system before sending the entire shipment to the retailer based on examining a sample size that has been selected randomly from the shipment and the minimum cost of committing type I and type II errors. Designing a methodology to minimize the total cost associated with the supply chain system when there is a possibility of damage occurring during shipping is the objective of this research